Lysoform

Lysoform is a brand of disinfectants, antiseptics and skin-care products used in hospitals, care homes and private households. It began in Berlin in 1900, when the pharmacist Hans Rosemann received a patent for a disinfectant made of liquid soap and formaldehyde and founded a company named after it [8]. The name has since been carried by several companies in different countries, most prominently Lysoform Dr. Hans Rosemann GmbH in Berlin and the Swiss company Lysoform Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Antisepsie AG, founded in Lausanne in 1904 and now based in Windisch, in the canton of Aargau.

Because of that split, the brand's founding date and home are given differently depending on who tells the story. The Berlin company and independent sources date the product and the first company to 1900 in Germany, while the Swiss company presents itself as a partner for disinfection and hygiene "since 1904", the year of its own founding [1]. The brand is active: the Swiss company maintains a current range of hand, skin, surface and instrument products, and the Berlin company continues to distribute disinfection and antiseptic products under the Lysoform name.

Hans Rosemann was born in September 1867 in Glogau, Silesia, and worked in Berlin as a pharmacist with a doctorate. By 1892 the germ-killing properties of formaldehyde were known, and Rosemann, together with the chemist Alfred Stephan, set out to build a practical disinfectant around it. According to the Berlin company's account, the result improved on earlier preparations in efficiency, toxicity and even smell.

The formula was a liquid soap containing formaldehyde: roughly 7 to 8 percent formaldehyde in an alcoholic potassium soap, with essential oils added to soften the odour. German Wikipedia describes Lysoform as the first aldehyde-based disinfectant; before it, disinfection relied on alcohols, mercury compounds such as mercuric chloride, and phenols in the form of tar oils [6]. Variants followed, including versions that contained phenols.

The German Patent Office granted the patent in 1900. To make use of it, Rosemann founded a company that same year and named it after the product. In 1913 he changed the company's name to Lysoform Dr. Hans Rosemann. The Berlin company describes the word "Lysoform" itself as a coinage that has stood in the dictionary for decades as a synonym for disinfection.

Rosemann did not see most of the brand's later history. He was killed in the First World War on 14 November 1914, in France.

### Early success

Lysoform quickly found use both in hospitals and in homes, and its success was not confined to Germany. The Berlin company says the product became a byword for disinfectant in hospitals, medical practice and private nursing across Europe, the Americas and parts of Asia, Africa and Australia.

A 1920s bottle preserved in Berlin shows how it was sold to ordinary households. Its label promised protection against infection and listed uses "for health and skin care", for child care, and against perspiration and bad smells. It also described the product as harmlessly fragrant and refreshing. According to the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge, Lysoform was advertised around a century ago as protection against the Spanish flu [7].

### Switzerland, 1904

In 1904 Lysoform AG was founded in Lausanne. The Swiss company describes itself as the first disinfectant manufacturer in Switzerland and says it began producing the already patented antiseptic and disinfectant Lysoform that same year [2]. By its own account, the product's cleaning power and good tolerance on skin and materials made it a standard disinfectant in hospitals, industry and households. Demand was strong enough that production capacity had to be expanded significantly as early as 1906.

Around the same time, Lysoform companies were set up in other countries. The Swiss company stresses that these were, and remain, legally and economically independent. It names Lysoform companies in Italy, Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Brazil and Argentina. The Berlin company, for its part, lists independently producing Lysoform firms with their own product lines in Austria, Italy, Spain, Argentina and Brazil.

### Berlin through two world wars

After Rosemann's death, the Berlin company passed to his daughter. Her husband, the lawyer Walter Heilgendorff, took over management in 1917 [6]. The company lost most of its foreign markets in the two world wars. During the Second World War and the early post-war years, production was sharply reduced and at times stopped entirely, which the company attributes partly to West Berlin's particular situation, including the Berlin Blockade of 1948.

Heilgendorff died in November 1945 and left the company to his two daughters. About five years later their husbands, Heinz Kuckei and Johannes Rödger, took over the management together. They built up a direct distribution organisation serving hospitals and other medical establishments. In 1966 the company moved into a new building on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse in Berlin-Lankwitz, having previously been based in Berlin-Schöneberg. For its 75th anniversary in 1975, the building was extended to more than twice its original size.

Johannes Rödger died in 1984 and Heinz Kuckei retired in 1988. Leadership then passed to Hans-Joachim Rödger, a medical microbiologist and epidemiologist and the founder's great-grandson. The Berlin company says German reunification reopened markets it had once lost. It also says that from the early 1990s, through Hans-Joachim Rödger and J. Schwemmer, it took a substantial part in drafting European (CEN) standards for testing how well chemical disinfectants and antiseptics work [8].

### The Swiss company since the 1960s

The Swiss Lysoform AG says it held a leading position in its home market until the 1960s, when foreign groups increasingly entered and competition became hard. In early 1970 it took over Savonnerie Leman, a soap maker in Aigle, which gave it what it calls a "second leg" of cleaning products and laundry detergents [2]. The steadier finances that followed allowed the company to modernise its production of disinfectants and medicinal products. That required a new site, which was found in Windisch/Brugg in 1978; from 1979, cleaning products were made in Aigle and disinfectants and medicinal products in Windisch/Brugg.

The detergent business did not last. As a mid-sized Swiss firm, the company explains, it neither wanted nor was able to join the increasingly expensive advertising battle in the laundry market, and it gave up detergent production in the early 1980s. Between 1985 and 1987 it developed an entirely new cleaning range whose manufacturing requirements could only be met at the newer plant, and it has since made all its products in Windisch/Brugg. On 1 May 2006 the company moved into new premises at Dorfstrasse 26 in Windisch.

No single group owns Lysoform. The name is used by several companies that trace their products back to Rosemann's patent but, according to the Swiss company, are legally and economically independent of one another.

The Berlin company, Lysoform Dr. Hans Rosemann GmbH, stayed with the founder's descendants through the twentieth century, passing from his daughter to the husbands of his granddaughters and then to his great-grandson. Its present owner is not publicly stated. The Swiss company, Lysoform Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Antisepsie AG (Société Suisse d'Antisepsie SA), is based in Windisch. According to the Berlin company, the Swiss firm is active exclusively on the Swiss market [8].

The two companies are nonetheless visibly connected. The Swiss website gives a Berlin telephone number for export enquiries and a contact e-mail address on the German company's domain. Its About page carries an obituary for Hans-Joachim Rödger, signed in Berlin in March 2021, which states that he took over the overall management of Lysoform in 1988. No shareholding between the two companies is publicly documented.

The two sides also give different basic data for the brand. The originating company and German Wikipedia place its founding in Berlin in 1900; the Swiss company's history and tagline begin with its own founding in Lausanne in 1904. Likewise, the headquarters is Berlin-Lankwitz for the original company and Windisch for the Swiss one. This article follows 1900 and Berlin as the brand's origin, and treats 1904 and Windisch as the founding year and seat of the Swiss company.

Lysoform is first and foremost a professional hygiene brand. The Swiss company defines its purpose in terms of infection control: through its products, it says, it wants to help prevent the transmission of infectious diseases. It sets out five goals, covering health, advice, development, technology and markets. It says it keeps its products' effect and skin tolerance in line with the current state of science, continuously develops its production methods and opens new markets together with its partners.

Its quality policy adds concrete commitments. The company pledges to advise customers on using its products and to train them where needed, to take part in national and international committees and associations, and to maintain quality management under ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 and the EU medical devices directive 93/42/EEC. It also commits to observing ecological concerns under the environmental standard DIN EN ISO 14001. The Swiss website points hospitals to KEIS, a scheme for cost-neutral disposal of plastic waste from hospitals.

The Berlin company frames its work in similar terms. It describes itself as a chemical-pharmaceutical enterprise that has specialised in disinfectants and antiseptics since its founding, and it says users must be able to trust that a disinfectant works as well as can be expected under practical conditions. One line from its self-description sets out a clear priority: "Ethical standards always take priority over price competition." The company says it has more than 80 employees and describes many of them as "scientists, businessmen and artists" alike. It holds certification under ISO 9001 for quality management and ISO 14001 for environmental management.

The brand's skin-care side grows out of its hospital focus. In the Swiss company's words, hands are the "main tools" in hospitals and elderly care, and irritated or damaged skin cannot be properly disinfected. Cleaning, protecting and caring for the skin therefore matter as much as disinfecting it. The company points to German occupational safety rules for disinfection work in health care, which call for cleansers that are as mild as possible and for regular use of skin-care products.

### The Swiss range

The Swiss company divides its catalogue into four areas: hands, skin and body; surfaces; instruments; and devices and accessories. Much of the range is aimed at cleaning and disinfecting surfaces and medical instruments rather than people.

The hands, skin and body range is the part closest to personal care. It includes alcohol-based hand disinfectants such as ACO-DERM V, AHD 2000/CH and a sensitive ACO-derm version free of perfume and dyes, as well as Hospisept for hands and skin and Amosept, which disinfects and cleans in one step. For skin protection there are ACO-care sensitive and Majola-H5-Creme. Wash lotions for sensitive or heavily used skin include ACO-san, Wasa 2000 and Wasa-Soft, joined by a propellant-free Wasa cleansing and care foam that also binds odours, and Luphenil for intensive skin care and regeneration.

A few products carry the Lysoform name itself. The Lysoform Fuss-Spray is described as cooling and relaxing tired feet and stopping foot odour, while the Ice-Fit-Spray is a cooling body spray meant to relax the muscles. Fluomint-Lysoform is a mouthwash intended for mouth and throat complaints. The range also includes several items sold under the Sterisol name, among them liquid soaps, a shower cream, a hand cleanser and a perfume-free skin cream.

Beyond chemicals, the Swiss company promotes HyBag, which it presents as a hygiene packaging for health care, catering, industry and trade. On certification, its homepage states that Lysoform Desinfektion AG is certified by MED/CERT to DIN EN ISO 13485, the quality-management standard for medical devices, and meets the requirements of Directive 93/42/EEC [1].

### Firsts claimed by the Berlin company

The Berlin company presents its history as a series of product firsts. By its account, Lysoform was the first aldehyde-containing antiseptic, and Pfefferminz-Lysoform the first disinfectant for the throat. It lists H5-Bio-Creme as the first skin cream with a pH of 5.5 and H5-Hände-Desinfiziens as the first alcohol-containing washing disinfectant.

Other items on its list are Lysoformin, described as the first aldehyde disinfectant with a pH below 7, and Aldowax, the first disinfecting wax preparation for floors. Wasa-Foam is presented as the first non-aerosol foam for the care of elderly people, and Lysoform-Sauna-Gel as the first body gel designed to support the effects of a sauna. The company also credits projects started by Johannes Rödger with giving new impetus to disinfectant research.

In November 2020 the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge in Berlin chose a 1920s Lysoform bottle as its "Thing of the Month" [7]. The green, octagonal bottle of pressed glass has a ribbed Bakelite cap and carries the product name in bright yellow script, both on the label and in relief on the back. The label shows a woman in an apron bending with a caring gesture over a person lying in bed, beneath the headline "For protection against infection". The museum placed the bottle in its Collection of Crisis, which it began in response to the pandemic then under way and continues to expand.

Lysoform is an active brand. The Swiss company's website presents a current product catalogue and links to ISO 13485 certificate documents labelled 2022. It sells through a Swiss distribution partner: Lysoform says it does not distribute its products itself and instead works with the partner Wetrok [1]. The most recent dated entry on the Swiss site is the March 2021 obituary for Hans-Joachim Rödger.

The Swiss company lists partner companies in some 48 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North Africa. In Berlin, Lysoform Dr. Hans Rosemann GmbH continues to distribute numerous disinfection and antiseptic products [7]. Across its companies, the brand is sold mainly to hospitals, care facilities and other professional users.